Earth," and "The Vision of Judgment." I looked in at the
court of the palace,--a pleasant, quiet place,--where he used to work,
and tried to guess which were the windows of his apartments. The sun was
shining brightly, and a bird was singing in the court; but there was no
other sign of life, nor anything to remind one of the profligate genius
who was so long a guest here.

RESTING-PLACE OF CAESARS--PICTURE OF A BEAUTIFUL HERETIC

Very different from the tomb of Dante, and different in the associations
it awakes, is the Rotunda or Mausoleum of Theodoric the Goth, outside
the Porta Serrata, whose daughter, Amalasuntha, as it is supposed, about
the year 530, erected this imposing structure as a certain place "to
keep his memory whole and mummy hid" for ever. But the Goth had not lain
in it long before Arianism went out of fashion quite, and the zealous
Roman Catholics despoiled his costly sleeping-place, and scattered his
ashes abroad. I do not know that any dead person has lived in it since.
The tomb is still a very solid affair,--a rotunda built of solid blocks
of limestone, and resting on a ten-sided base, each side having a recess
surmounted by an arch. The upper story is also decagonal, and is reached
by a flight of modern stone steps. The roof is composed of a single
block of Istrian limestone, scooped out like a shallow bowl inside; and,
being the biggest roof-stone I ever saw, I will give you the dimensions.
It is thirty-six feet in diameter, hollowed out to the depth of ten
feet, four feet thick at the center, and two feet nine inches at the
edges, and is estimated to weigh two hundred tons. Amalasuntha must have
had help in getting it up there. The lower story is partly under water.
The green grass of the inclosure in which it stands is damp enough for
frogs. An old woman opened the iron gate to let us in. Whether she was
any relation of the ancient proprietor, I did not inquire; but she had
so much trouble in, turning the key in the rusty lock, and letting
us in, that I presume we were the only visitors she has had for some
centuries.

Old women abound in Ravenna; at least, she was not young who showed
us the mausoleum of Galla Placidia. Placidia was also prudent and
foreseeing, and built this once magnificent sepulcher for her own
occupation. It is in the form of a Latin cross, forty-six feet in length
by about forty in width. The floor is paved with rich marbles; the
cupola is covered with mosaics of t